Tesla "Full Self Driving" not capable of autonomous driving

[Dzmitry]

Originally Posted by AnalogMan

I don't know Elon Musk, and I'm certainly no psychologist (though I could probably use one myself) and of course not qualified to give any kind of psychiatric diagnosis.

I invariably root for underdogs, and applaud and admire anyone with the brains and courage to start a company in one of the least start-up friendly industries imaginable - cars. I think the world could use more people like Preston Tucker and cars like the Tucker.

Several years ago, I happened to be in a rather posh restaurant in San Francisco. We couldn't score a table, so we were drinking at the bar. Musk came in, with a staggeringly gorgeous girl on his arm (I have no idea who she was). His table was close enough that I could hear much of the conversation (it was hard not to, he was talking so loudly). I was fascinated, and stayed for about an hour and a half, just to listen.

Anyone can have a bad night. Maybe he was just grandstanding, showing off for his jaw-droppingly model-beautiful date. But in over an hour, I didn't hear anything that remotely resembled anything approaching humanity or empathy.

What I heard was an endless, loud stream of self-aggrandizing, pompous, egomaniacal bragging. It seemed like every third word out of his mouth was "I" or "me". I don't think I heard his date utter a sound the entire time. It was all about him, how great he was, what a genius he is, how Tesla is going to take over the world, crush everyone in its way, put all the other car companies out of business, how anyone who didn't see things his way was obviously an idiot, how he knows better than anyone else, etc. etc. The derisive, disdainful way he referred to seemingly every other human in the world except himself, including being needlessly disrespectful and disparaging of the waitstaff, struck me. According to him, everyone was a moron except him. I didn't catch anything about Tesla cars being better for the plant or less polluting or anything other than how Tesla is the 'future' and everyone has to get on board with his vision of it.

Maybe he's just a crass egomaniac, but his manner of speaking was to me so similar to my old boss (and also seemed to me like a vastly more intelligent version of a certain recently former president). He was unscripted, not making a presentation or video, just being himself for his date. I suspect it was as close to the 'real' him as one was likely to see.

Whether I "like" Musk (or anyone else in the world) is irrelevant (though it's hard for me to find anything 'likable' about someone after seeing that kind of behavior). When it comes to companies, they should be judged objectively, on what they do (and don't do), their products, their financial performance, and their corporate behavior.

But one can get some interesting insights into a company from its leadership. Especially in the case of Tesla, where one person so totally dominates the company, its culture, and its actions. From the little snippet I saw that night, combined with Tesla's corporate behaviors (all the previous discussion regarding AutoPilot, Full Self Driving, etc.), I see it as being driven entirely by Musk's narcissism, greed, and ego and not any kind of humanitarian or empathetic motives.

And you're not wrong at all. In that case, since you do seem to have some kind of experience in seeing/hearing what kind of a person he is, I can understand, as well as agree, with your feelings on Musk.

[Dadhawk]

Originally Posted by AnalogMan

I see it as being driven entirely by Musk's narcissism, greed, and ego and not any kind of humanitarian or empathetic motives.

That pretty much describes any major business that started as a single person on a mission to change the world. Ford, GM, GE, AT&T, Standard Oil, other large companies around the world, pretty much have their roots in one person that never took no for an answer and had an overwhelming need to dominate.

The only companies I can think of that had a different beginning are Chick-Fil-A and Hobby Lobby.

That said, I'm pretty sure you are close to correct about Musk, although for the most part I like what his results are, and his public persona. If I liked their design language and their user agreements I might buy a Tesla. If I had a billion dollars, I also would book a flight on one of his rockets to the Moon.

[AnalogMan]

Originally Posted by Dadhawk

That pretty much describes any major business that started as a single person on a mission to change the world.

If I had a billion dollars, I also would book a flight on one of his rockets to the Moon.

I agree with you, both that most major businesses are started by people with that kind of personality, and I'd also buy a seat on one of his rockets if I had the money.

What to me crosses the line is intentional behavior that knowingly causes harm to other people. Musk is certainly brilliant. He knows exactly what he is doing by naming his systems 'AutoPilot' and 'Full Self Driving'. He's doing it to sell more cars, and not to help anyone but himself (and Tesla shareholders that happen to be along for the ride). He also knows that people grossly abuse the systems, and that people are getting hurt, and dying, as a result.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2021/03...fety-standads/

He's doing it anyway, because I don't think he cares about any person in the world other than himself (another parallel with my old boss).

It's one thing to be obsessively driven to dominate and not take no for an answer. You're right, it's hard to build a successful major business without those traits. But I don't think that it's ever justifiable to do things that knowingly will result in injuries and deaths.

But that's just me. I'm strange that way (in many ways...). I naively think that a human life is worth more than money, because it is irreplaceable.

[Dadhawk]

Originally Posted by AnalogMan

But that's just me. I'm strange that way (in many ways...). I naively think that a human life is worth more than money, because it is irreplaceable.

Nope, not just you, I pretty much agree with you.

[Irace86.2.0]

Originally Posted by AnalogMan

I agree with you, both that most major businesses are started by people with that kind of personality, and I'd also buy a seat on one of his rockets if I had the money.

What to me crosses the line is intentional behavior that knowingly causes harm to other people. Musk is certainly brilliant. He knows exactly what he is doing by naming his systems 'AutoPilot' and 'Full Self Driving'. He's doing it to sell more cars, and not to help anyone but himself (and Tesla shareholders that happen to be along for the ride). He also knows that people grossly abuse the systems, and that people are getting hurt, and dying, as a result.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2021/03...fety-standads/

He's doing it anyway, because I don't think he cares about any person in the world other than himself (another parallel with my old boss).

It's one thing to be obsessively driven to dominate and not take no for an answer. You're right, it's hard to build a successful major business without those traits. But I don't think that it's ever justifiable to do things that knowingly will result in injuries and deaths.

But that's just me. I'm strange that way (in many ways...). I naively think that a human life is worth more than money, because it is irreplaceable.

So you think Elon Musk came up with the name Autopilot and FSD mode and was solely responsible for its implementation at Tesla? You seem to think Musk is a one man show, using his position to run the whole company.

I already stated Tesla removed people from the beta. Isn’t that direct counter-evidence to your claims that Tesla/Musk doesn’t care? The system already requires engagement. Like seats belts, there are chimes, and like seat belts, the car doesn’t stop when someone doesn’t wear their seat belts, removes their airbags, accelerates too aggressively, turns off their traction control, follows too close to drivers at speed or goes over the speed limit. All manufacturers clearly don’t care, orrrrrrrrr maybe manufacturers give warnings, but don’t try to control the buyers of their products—personal responsibility.

[AnalogMan]

Originally Posted by Irace86.2.0

So you think Elon Musk came up with the name Autopilot and FSD mode and was solely responsible for its implementation at Tesla? You seem to think Musk is a one man show, using his position to run the whole company.

History is replete with infamous examples of major companies being controlled with an iron fist by a domineering CEO. Sometimes with impressive results, both good and not so good. Steve Jobs. Jack Welch. Bill Gates in his early days, before he learned better. Elizabeth Holmes. The person I used to work for.

These were all large corporations with thousands of employees, but narcissistic CEOs micromanaged almost everything. I do think Musk is cast from the same mold (see my earlier post about my experience where I happened to overhear his dinnertime conversation at a restaurant). I don't think anything happens at Tesla unless he either orders or approves of it. The naming of AutoPilot and Full Self Driving included.

Originally Posted by Irace86.2.0

I already stated Tesla removed people from the beta. Isn’t that direct counter-evidence to your claims that Tesla/Musk doesn’t care? All manufacturers clearly don’t care, orrrrrrrrr maybe manufacturers give warnings, but don’t try to control the buyers of their products—personal responsibility.

Removing irresponsible users from beta is a good thing. But it doesn't counteract the previous bad thing of intentionally calling the systems a name which implies capabilities they don't have, which encourages irresponsible, dangerous misuse that gets people injured and killed. If you set fire to a house, then calling the fire department doesn't forgive that you shouldn't have set fire to the house in the first place.

This can't be written off to "personal responsibility", because other people can get hurt or killed. If the only person who could get injured was the Tesla owner, then sure, fine. Let them be idiots and remove themselves from the gene pool any way they like. But it's not limited to the driver. When an imbecile with a 4000 lb projectile traveling 100 feet per second hits someone else, other people can be hurt or killed. That's what I can't abide. I don't want to be run down by an idiot reading or sleeping behind the wheel because he thought 'Full Self Driving' would take care of everything. They can harm themselves if they want, but they, and Tesla, don't have the right to irresponsibly and unnecessarily endanger other people.

If Musk really cared about people's safety, he could easily rename AutoPilot and Full Self Driving. Maybe even issue a statement saying that those names implied capabilities the systems did not have, that people were being misled and using them in inappropriate ways, and to clarify any misunderstandings it was now going to be called ElonCruise or SuperMusk or whatever.

But that would require humility. It would require being able to admit responsibility and fault. It would risk selling fewer cars. It would require putting people's safety and lives ahead of profit, ego, and fame. And I don't think he's capable of doing that (again, see my previous post eavesdropping on his conversation).

[Ohio Enthusiast]

Originally Posted by AnalogMan

calling the systems a name which implies capabilities they don't have, which encourages irresponsible, dangerous misuse that gets people injured and killed.

Tesla gets a lot of exposure on their autonomous tech, its failures and how people abuse it. But people abuse semi-autonomous capabilities on other brands as well. There's one for Inifiniti, for example. I'm sure TikTok is full of non-Tesla "self-driving" videos. I think Tesla suffers from selection bias both from the direction of media attention (where an AutoPilot incident/abuse video gets more exposure than the same in other brands) and from Tesla users being more vocal in their sharing of such stunts (as well as the always on external cameras that allow for more incidents to be captured vs. relying on an aftermarket dashcam that not every other "self-driving" car has).

[Dadhawk]

Originally Posted by Ohio Enthusiast

Tesla gets a lot of exposure on their autonomous tech, its failures and how people abuse it.

I don't think anyone is saying stupid is an exclusive feature of Tesla owners.

[RToyo86]

Calling something "full self driving" then sticking a tiny disclaimer underneath that says "no it actually isn't self driving" is clickbait advertising.

Matt Farah and Jason Fenske had a intersting chat about it recently. One of them summed it up like buying a box that says cereal on it, and at the bottom of the box in small writing it says "not cereal".


There is also a moral standpoint that this stuff is all "beta" which means not finished and the implications of using it on the road around other drivers who haven't signed up for the service. I'm paraphrasing their conversation but it was interesting non the less.

I'm more or less neutral on the subject minus hating the term telsa used to call their fancy cruise control.

[Irace86.2.0]

Originally Posted by Dadhawk

I don't think anyone is saying stupid is an exclusive feature of Tesla owners.

Just of Elon Musk, along with narcissistic, inhuman and greedy.

[Irace86.2.0]

Originally Posted by AnalogMan

History is replete with infamous examples of major companies being controlled with an iron fist by a domineering CEO. Sometimes with impressive results, both good and not so good. Steve Jobs. Jack Welch. Bill Gates in his early days, before he learned better. Elizabeth Holmes. The person I used to work for.

These were all large corporations with thousands of employees, but narcissistic CEOs micromanaged almost everything. I do think Musk is cast from the same mold (see my earlier post about my experience where I happened to overhear his dinnertime conversation at a restaurant). I don't think anything happens at Tesla unless he either orders or approves of it. The naming of AutoPilot and Full Self Driving included.



Removing irresponsible users from beta is a good thing. But it doesn't counteract the previous bad thing of intentionally calling the systems a name which implies capabilities they don't have, which encourages irresponsible, dangerous misuse that gets people injured and killed. If you set fire to a house, then calling the fire department doesn't forgive that you shouldn't have set fire to the house in the first place.

This can't be written off to "personal responsibility", because other people can get hurt or killed. If the only person who could get injured was the Tesla owner, then sure, fine. Let them be idiots and remove themselves from the gene pool any way they like. But it's not limited to the driver. When an imbecile with a 4000 lb projectile traveling 100 feet per second hits someone else, other people can be hurt or killed. That's what I can't abide. I don't want to be run down by an idiot reading or sleeping behind the wheel because he thought 'Full Self Driving' would take care of everything. They can harm themselves if they want, but they, and Tesla, don't have the right to irresponsibly and unnecessarily endanger other people.

If Musk really cared about people's safety, he could easily rename AutoPilot and Full Self Driving. Maybe even issue a statement saying that those names implied capabilities the systems did not have, that people were being misled and using them in inappropriate ways, and to clarify any misunderstandings it was now going to be called ElonCruise or SuperMusk or whatever.

But that would require humility. It would require being able to admit responsibility and fault. It would risk selling fewer cars. It would require putting people's safety and lives ahead of profit, ego, and fame. And I don't think he's capable of doing that (again, see my previous post eavesdropping on his conversation).

You are overly fixated on the name with no evidence that changing it matters.

[RToyo86]

Originally Posted by Irace86.2.0

The same way you would have to figure it out. Tesla is taking a more human vision concept where they don’t want to rely on anything other than vision like humans do. Other companies are using lidar, which may be able to calculate lanes distances from objects at the shoulders or based on other traffic positions on the road. Some Robotaxis on level 4 autonomy might refuse transport to areas outside of their gps and mapping areas, and in that way, they only stick to areas that have been precisely mapped with lidar and gps, and their vision is coupled with that data to maintain lanes positions.

It seems pretty clear that machines have the data capacity and extra sensory technology to outperform humans given the neural network is equally as robust.

I know little about this sort of tech overall. Lidar from my understanding is quite expensive at the moment, but seems to have some advantages over Tesla's camera system. If they can advance the tech fast enough that would in theory push the costs down.

Computers and software work great until they don't. Mainly where my skepticism lies on overcomplicating things.

assuming this will be quite niche in the early phases I can see this working in warm climates with more consistent weather all year round. At this point we're are barely in its infancy phase so it's a lot of what ifs.

[Irace86.2.0]

Originally Posted by RToyo86

Calling something "full self driving" then sticking a tiny disclaimer underneath that says "no it actually isn't self driving" is clickbait advertising.

Matt Farah and Jason Fenske had a intersting chat about it recently. One of them summed it up like buying a box that says cereal on it, and at the bottom of the box in small writing it says "not cereal".


There is also a moral standpoint that this stuff is all "beta" which means not finished and the implications of using it on the road around other drivers who haven't signed up for the service. I'm paraphrasing their conversation but it was interesting non the less.

I'm more or less neutral on the subject minus hating the term telsa used to call their fancy cruise control.

It is literally a FSD beta. It is FSD. IT IS FSD!!! I don’t know how many times I have to repeat myself. The analogy is off. It isn’t a box of...rocks...labeled a box of cereal, or something. It is a box of cereal with a recipe that is still being perfected, but once it is available on the shelf, it will be a normal box of cereal.

Would it make you feel better if Tesla hired thousands of people to perfect FSD beta on the road instead of allowing users who are being monitored?

So far this thread has been full of theory and conjecture. Does anybody have any data to show Autopilot or FSD beta is responsible for an avoidable crash that involved injury to another vehicle’s occupants or to a pedestrian, but more specifically, that the incidence of these events is greater than these events without Autopilot or FSD beta?

[Dadhawk]

Originally Posted by Irace86.2.0

It is literally a FSD beta. It is FSD. IT IS FSD!!!

So then, you are agreeing Tesla is misrepresenting their product, except you are saying they are underselling it? Didn't this start because Musk was quoted as saying FSD wasn't really FSD?

Originally Posted by Irace86.2.0

Would it make you feel better if Tesla hired thousands of people to perfect FSD beta on the road instead of allowing users who are being monitored?

Yes, because Tesla would be fully responsible for any mishaps and couldn't sluff it off as "oh those wacky users, you know, they didn't act like we said they should"

Originally Posted by Irace86.2.0

So far this thread has been full of theory and conjecture. Does anybody have any data to show Autopilot or FSD beta is responsible for an avoidable crash that involved injury to another vehicle’s occupants or to a pedestrian, but more specifically, that the incidence of these events is greater than these events without Autopilot or FSD beta?

Pretty much any accident where Autopilot/FSD is engaged is potentially one that could have been avoided. That's pretty much true for any accident regardless of driven, self-driven, or on a bus.

By the same token, we do not have statistics on how many potential accidents were avoided because the human driver took action to avoid it. I personally experience the situation once or twice a week.

I don't really trust the statistics yet on self-driving, but I do believe ultimately it will be safer. Right now though the small number of testers, while statistically significant, do not represent all the scenarios where accidents occur. The "human" statistics include all weather and road conditions, FSD stats do not.

I suppose it's possible they are peeling the onion back a bit and limiting human stats to similar conditions but I have not seen evidence of that.